


The Bluebird of Passive-Aggressiveness

by thekidwantsacoffee



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Broken Bones, Concussions, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Language, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trans Male Character, loki doesn’t know how to express emotions so he just breaks shit, oh ho ho indi found an old crush and now he wrote a whole damn story, this shit is not beta-ed at all, written by a trans man, yes i’m using baseball fuck off
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekidwantsacoffee/pseuds/thekidwantsacoffee
Summary: You’re in a meeting to become the new manager of the Boston Red Sox when you get a call from your college roommate. What ensues after is a fateful meeting with a god who can’t stop picturing you and his brother together.
Relationships: Loki/Male Reader, Loki/Reader
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So each chapter is gonna take place during/in between a Marvel movie. This chapter takes place during Thor in 2011, so I’m going to try and keep everything as up to date with those years as possible. 
> 
> Happy reading!

2011

This is it. The most important day of your life. You’ve had this meeting with minor league teams. You had it with the Little League Association. But you’ve never had it with the MLB. This is huge. 

“You know, your track record precedes you,” Epstein says, which is a wild thing to hear, coming from the youngest General Manager in baseball history. 

You swallow quickly, trying to regain whatever sense of cool you had. “How so?” 

“Managing two minor league teams before recruiting for three, coaching little league and a Masters in Applied Science of Statistics.”

You nod and smile. “I guess it does. Baseball has always been my thing. I’ve loved it since I was a kid, but I cracked my wrist and broke my arm and couldn’t throw right, so I went into the science behind it all.” Your phone buzzes in your back pocket and you ignore it. This is a meeting with the fucking _Red Sox_. 

“You follow Brand and Beane’s model, but you also like to take risks,” Epstien tells you. “We almost got Beane to fill your job years ago.”

“But that’s before you were hired,” You reply. “Yeah, I take risks, but that’s part of Baseball, y’know? You can’t be afraid of risks.”

Your phone buzzes again and you ignore it. “Your little league team made it to the World Series.”

“Yep.” Buzz. 

“And your dad played for the Mavericks.”

“No one wanted him, and then he was on the team responsible for Big League Chew.” Buzz. 

It’s getting annoying at this point, but you can't interrupt the meeting. Not with the Red Sox on the line. 

This continues for another half an hour. Finally, Epstein tells you you have three days to decide and you finally check your phone when you get back in your car. 

Darcy- 15 missed calls 

“Jesus, Darce, what do you need?” 

“Y/N, I need you to come out to New Mexico because I think I just met a God.” 

“God? You met God?” You say. “Can you ask God if I’m actually going to manage the Red Sox? Because you just almost fucked up my meeting with the _Red Sox_.” 

“No, no, not Christian God, a God. I think he’s Norse.” 

What? What the hell is she on about? Is she drunk? No, her voice is too sober. “You’re having a breakdown, I’ll come get you.” 

“I’m not having a breakdown, I met a God! Who has a brother!” 

“Great, I’ll be there tonight.” 

~

Darcy wasn’t having a breakdown. At 4:47 on a Tuesday afternoon, you met Thor. Yeah, that Thor. God of Thunder, son of Odin, Prince of Asgard, the one you learned about in your mythology class you took Sophomore year that you barely remember. And Thor was drunk enough to want to set you up with his brother who had banished him from Asgard. 

“You’re just Loki’s type...smart, slightly intimidating, a man…” 

You shake your head. “Not so sure I’d want to go on a date with a guy who would allow his brother to remain in exile after his father died.” 

“That’s the agreement that he had with the Jotuns,” Thor tells you, slightly drunk. Dr. Selvig is asleep on Jane’s bed in her camper, leaving you, Jane, Thor, and Darcy cramped. 

“I don’t even know what he looks like,” You tell him. 

“They have blind dates for a reason,” Darcy says, and you shoot her a death glare if there ever was one. 

“That look! That’s a Loki look! He’d love to see that.” 

You can feel the look drop from your face. “What look?” You ask as you turn back to Thor. 

“The one you just had!” 

“Cutting eyes is Y/N’s specialty, he’s been really good at it since college,” Darcy says and you do it again. You’re not the happiest person right now. Jetlagged, tired, and a manager position on the line, but right now the main focus seems to be setting you up with Thor’s brother. 

“He did the look again, amazing,” Thor tells Jane. He has to be drunk. He must be. Then again, you don’t know how Asgard metabolisms work, so he might not be anymore. That might just be how he is. “Tell me, Sir Y/N, what is it that you do?”

“I work in baseball,” You tell him. “I might be the manager of the Boston Red Sox, as long as they don’t give anyone another offer within the next three days.” 

“What’s that?” Thor asks you. “Is it a game?”

“Yeah, actually,” You say with a smile. 

“Can I watch one?”

You shake your head. “We’re in the off-season.”

“Oh,” Thor says. The look on his face lets you know that he’s not exactly sure what that means, but you hope he gets the general gist. “Interesting. So how do you know Darcy and Jane?”

“I went to college with Darcy,” You explain to him. “We were roommates until I went to Grad School.” Thor nods. All of this is going over his head. You figure it’s fine. “So what’s the deal with Loki, anyways?”

“Because of my banishment and the looming war with the Jotuns, my father couldn’t handle the stress, and he passed away,” Thor tarts. You can see the pain in his eyes. Heart attack, most likely. “Loki is now the King of Asgard, and he has the power to unbanish me, but he can’t because my banishment is the only thing keeping the peace with the Jotuns.”

You nod. “So if Loki unbanished you, he would piss the Jotuns off and send you guys into war?”

“Precisely,” Thor says, and you nod again. “It’s a smart move, the battle alone would kill many Asgardians.”

“Just because it’s smart doesn’t mean it’s fair,” You say with a sigh. “Look, I have three siblings, both older and younger than me. I don’t really like any of them, but if I had the choice to take them out of exile or go to war with another planet, I’d figure something out.”

“What are you saying?” Thor asks you, and you don’t really know. You don’t really know what the hell you’ve been talking about. If we’re being honest, you’ve been pulling conversation out of your ass for the last fifteen minutes. 

“I’m saying that I feel like there’s more to the situation,” You answer. “I just… there’s more going on, I know that. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

~

“Thor! We found you!” A strong voice says, muffled. You turn to see four people standing at the glass, shoving against each other and pressing their faces into the glass. “Thor! It’s us!” 

“Friends!” Thor says, getting up from the table and opening the door for them. They all pile in, each taking their turn giving Thor bear hugs, but specific bear hugs. Each is different. 

You’re pretty sure any of them could crush your skull between their forearm and bicep, but you instead focus on your coffee in its plain beige mug. 

“Who are they?” The lady asks, pointing to you, Jane, Dr. Selvig, and Darcy. 

“That is Jane, Dr. Selvig, Darcy, and Sir Y/N,” Thor introduces, pointing to everyone before parting you on your back, almost making you choke on your coffee. You don’t why he calls you Sir, but you’re not gonna protest it. “This is Volstagg, Lady Sif, Hogun, and Fandrall. What are you all doing here?” 

“We’re here to bring you home,” The large man, Volstagg, tells Thor. 

“I can’t go home, I’ve been banished, remember?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

You knew that there was more to it, you had told Thor that. However, you just bite your tongue and hope to whatever the hell that controls the universe it wouldn’t get too bad. 

~

“Thor!” You call out, watching as he stands in the middle of the street. You feel your legs rushing past you and before you can think you’re pulling the Asgardian back. “You can’t do this. They need you, Jane needs you.” 

“Loki won’t stop.” 

You’re still astounded that he wanted to set you up with Loki. 

“He can kill me before I let him ruin Jane’s happiness.” 

You stand in front of Thor, staring down the metal creature before you. It seems like the two of you are there for forever, just watching each other. The creature that wouldn’t stop destroying everything around you that wanted to kill the Asgardian behind you just stares at you, like it’s not sure about what it wants to do. 

“Kill me,” You tell it. “Kill me. Just fucking do it. You’re not going to ruin Jane’s happiness. I can’t let you.” 

The creature just stares at you. It’s a silence that boils your blood and sends rage piercing through your body. 

“Kill me!” You shout, and it’s a shout that rips through your vocal chords and the creature starts it’s slow walk, and it grabs your shoulder and sets you aside, but it’s grasp feels like it’s about to rip your arm out of its socket. Of course it’s the arm that you’ve broken twice, now three times as you're thrown to the ground and you can actually feel the bone cracking apart from itself and the pain is so strong you don’t actually scream. You hit your head hard against the concrete, and you hear another scream, and you’re out, cold. 

~

By the time you wake up there’s a figure looming in the corner of your hospital room. You can’t make them out, and before you can, they’re gone. 

You move your head and the muscle on the side of your neck burns. There’s a cast all the way up your arm with a sling around your shoulder. You groan in pain and someone moves beside you. They pop their head into frame and it’s Darcy. 

“You’re awake!” She says, beaming. 

“I wanna go back to sleep,” You say, your voice mopy and tired. 

“No, no, you can’t, you’re concussed,” She tells you. “If you go back to sleep you’re just gonna make it worse.”

You sigh, opening your eyes fully against the white lights of the hospital. “How long was I out?”

“A few hours,” She tells you. 

“Fuck,” You say, wanting to sit up. You need to call Epstein. “Where’s my phone?”

“You can’t look at cell phones,” Darcy tells you, and you glare at her. 

“I know that. I need you to call Epstein and hold the phone to my ear,” You instruct, and she grabs your phone from the bag you had brought with you. She makes the call and the cold plastic feels good against your hot ear. 

The talk with Epstein is very brief, and you let him know about the current situation, but instead of telling him you were thrown to the pavement by the force of a God, you just tell him that you got hit by a car while visiting your mom in Albuquerque. You explain you’ll be out of commission until you get discharged and he explains that it’s fine, since they don’t have to get into properly recruiting until the first of the next month. 

You sigh as Darcy hangs up. “So, where’s everyone?”

“Well, Selvig and Jane are outside, they would only let one of us in at a time,” Darcy explains. “The Asgardians are gone. Just straight up disappeared into the sky.”

You quirk your eyebrows up. “Including Thor?”

Darcy nods. “Including Thor.”

You look down at your broken arm. “I did this for nothing?”

“Well, not nothing. You’re gonna have a pretty cool story.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m required by law to not tell that story.”

“You’d be correct,” A new voice says, and there’s a man standing in the doorway. “Agent Phil Coulson. I’m with S.H.I.E.L.D. I must say, you did something pretty remarkable out there.”

“Thank you?” You respond as he walks into the room. He has a folder under his arm. “Oh, let me guess, I have to be debriefed.”

“Fantastic guesswork,” Coulson says, handing over the paperwork. Fucking paperwork. You knew you had to do a lot of that when you actually got out of the hospital and back to Boston, but now on the Federal Level? Son of a bitch. “I’m not sure how much you’ll remember of this considering you’re pretty doped up.”

“Listen, Coulson, I can feel exactly where the bone has cracked and the side of my head is pounding just as bad as it was when I got thrown against the concrete, I think I’ll remember.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a year since you had an encounter with the gods. Now, as an attack on New York is taking place, you get to meet the one who caused it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon divergence? Me? Of course not...yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of canon divergence, you’re just gonna have work with me here as I try to make this story interesting.

2012

Top of the seventh, the pitchers just switched out, and you’re wondering why the hell Gomez and Loney haven't been able to get on base when the shadow passes over you. It snakes across the Yankee’s stadium and you look up from the outside of the dug out to see a metal creature filling up the sky. 

It’s not unsimilar to the creature that broke your arm last year. 

Of course this shit happens in the Bronx. At the end of the series. When both teams are tied. 

You should probably care more about the fact that the creature is making a nosedive into the field than the game itself. 

The screams start to fill your ears and you send everyone in the dugout back to the locker rooms as the dirt lifts up and the creature comes back out of the ground and aims for the top of the nosebleed seats. You’ve dealt with this shit before. You just have to hope it’s the same kind of creature. 

You know that it’s not. But you can still hope. 

The trains are full and you just have to run. Run as hard as you can and as long as your legs will carry you. Thank God physical therapy made it so you had to exercise, otherwise you wouldn’t have made it more than a couple blocks. You’ve run so far now that you have no idea where anything is, and it doesn’t help that the city is mangled and things are crawling all around you and they somehow don’t see you, even though they’re flying right over your head. It is absolutely terrifying. 

And you can’t help but wonder who the fuck caused it. 

By the time you reach the true middle of the city, your lungs burn and your back hurts and your arm hasn’t been this sore in months. You have to stop and lean against a car that’s missing two doors and has its front windshield cracked. 

Recovering as best you can, you open your eyes to see a red cape appear in your vision and you recognize that long blonde hair. “Thor?” You shout, out of breath. 

“Ah, Sir Y/N!” Thor greets you as he turns to face you, the look of confusion disappearing from his face. There are five other people there, and none of them know who you are and you can only make out a few other faces. There’s Tony Stark, of course, you remember when he told everyone he was Iron Man. Every kid on your Little League team wanted to be him. Then there was Captain America--Captain America? You shake the thought and recognize the giant green guy, the Hulk. He tried to recreate Captain America’s serum. Damn, you watch too much news. “How nice to see you again. Where did you come from?”

“The Bronx,” You tell him, standing up and letting your spine crack, relieving some pressure. Thor’s niceness towards you always makes you smile, but this isn’t the time. If Thor’s here there’s only one thing that could be happening and you don’t like it. “Don’t tell me this is about your brother.” 

“How did you get past the perimeter?” Captain America asks you. You just shrug. You didn’t know there was a perimeter. You just ran. No one stopped you. 

“It is!” He beams at you before dropping that smile, like he can feel Tony’s glare against the side of his head. “Sorry. It is.” 

“How do you two know each other?” Tony Stark asks, pointing between the two of you. Tony Stark. Pointing at you. “And how did you run all the way here from the Bronx?”

You shake the thought and remember the circumstances of the two of you meeting. “I tried to save Thor last year. It kinda worked,” You explain. “And I ran. So far.” 

“Did it work?” Tony asks.

“The running?” 

“The saving Thor.” 

You shake your head, slightly embarrassed. “Not really, no.” 

“No,” Thor repeats. “But, Sir Y/N here has an immense amount of bravery. And he only sustained a broken arm! And he ran all the way here from the Bronx!” 

“I broke my entire arm. Wrist to socket. I can’t throw ball anymore,” You tell Tony. 

“Throwing isn’t that important!” Thor says with a dismissive wave of his hand. 

“I’m the manager of the Boston Red Sox,” You say right after. It’s a constant back and forth between the two of you, and at the speed both of you are replying it’s almost comical. Well, it would be comical if there weren’t metal creatures flying over your head. 

“I have no idea what that means,” Thor tells you, and you remember how little he knew about Midgard sports. That’s great. 

“It means he’s unqualified to fight this fight,” Tony says, trying to dismiss you. He turns away, getting ready to tell the other people what to do. You glance around, and you do  _ not  _ like the look the guy with the arrows is giving you. You get it. You’re a civilian. You’re a liability. 

You clear your throat. “Loki didn’t kill me, is the thing, uh, the point I’m trying to get across,” You tell Tony, trying to find your words to show that you weren’t completely useless. “He could’ve. He had this giant metal thing that spewed a beam of fire and it stared me down. He didn’t kill me when he had every reason and oppurtunity. And he also doesn’t know that I’m here. With you. He’s not gonna expect me.”

Thor nods. “Let him stay in your tower, maybe he can talk some sense into Loki,” Thor suggests. “Loki tried to kill me that day, and he didn’t try to kill Y/N.”

You can’t believe what’s happening. You had no idea whether or not you could talk  _ sense  _ into Loki. You just knew that he didn’t kill you. “Thor, can we have a sidebar real quick?” You ask. 

“Of course.” 

You and Thor turn away from Tony, whose eyes you can feel on the back of your neck. “You realize I’ve never spoken to Loki, right?” 

“I know that. You’ll be able to. You have the right personality.” 

“Gotcha,” You say, and you turn back to Tony. 

“Sir Y/N will stay in the tower and they’ll talk a good load of sense into Loki.” 

“And how will we draw Loki back to the tower?” Tony asks. 

“We have his scepter, and Y/N will protect it.” 

You nod before realizing what Thor has said. Your eyes widen and you have to play it cool. “Yep, that’s right. I can protect the Scepter.” 

“With a fucked up arm?” Tony asks. 

“Just because I can’t throw doesn’t mean I can’t swing a bat.” 

Tony looks pissed off. He stares between you and Thor and he sighs, rubbing his face. “Alright, so I’m gonna have to give you a run down,” Tony starts. “Do you know what a Chitauri is?” 

“What in the fuck is a Chitauri?” 

~

You had been watching the chaos for a while now. Just waiting for Loki to come back. 

“So you’re the human who wanted me to kill him,” A voice says, and youturn around. He’s not what you imagined. Well, he is Loki, but he looks nothing like Thor. They were supposed to be brothers? Is it bad you were just imagining Thor with a darker persona around him? 

Right. He’s adopted. 

“And you’re the god that decided to not kill me,” You respond. He’s very attractive. He’s taller than you, by a lot, and that doesn’t help with you being attracted to him. “What was with that anyway?” 

He doesn’t answer your question. “Where’s my scepter?” 

“Wow, straight with the big boy questions. Also, I asked you first,” You laugh, plopping down on the couch, trying to see what annoys him, what makes him tick. You know where the bat is. You don’t need it yet. You hope that you’re not going to need it, but you know you probably will. “Why didn’t you kill me?” 

“Something about you was intimidating,” Loki tells you, wincing as walks over to you. Was he hurt? “And I only sense more of that now.” 

“It’s the testosterone,” You smile at him. “I’ve been taking it for a year. I also got a lot more confident.” 

“That’s what it is, the confidence,” Loki says, the smile on his face making your heart flutter a bit. What the hell. “You’re very confident for someone of your stature. You know,your country’s perceptions on men like you is widely inaccurate.” 

“It is?” You ask, your voice making you sound oblivious to the fact. You know that Loki knows you’re faking it. He’s the God of Lies, after all. “In what ways?” 

“Well, first of all, it portrays men like you as weak and submissive, when really you’re very fierce and strong and independent. You are, at least.” 

You nod, slightly surprised by the compliment. Is he flirting with you? “I happen to be those things. You also happen to be trying to sweet talk your way into me giving up where the scepter is, and that’s not gonna happen.” 

Natasha has to get to it. She and you are the only ones who know where it is. He shakes his head at you before looking like he’s sizing you up again, like he’s actually going to fight you. “You would’ve enjoyed Germany, it’s a very lovely place.” 

“With you? I would’ve loved it,” You say sarcastically. “Of course, I’d prefer it if you wore a suit rather than your current get up.” 

Loki’s helmet disappears and he sits on the other end of the couch. “Does this better suit your liking?” 

You grimace at the words so that way you can stifle your laugh. They’re so posh, especially compared to Thor’s. “Sure.” 

“Sure? That’s all?” 

“Sure,” You repeat, finding a bit of humor in his annoyance with your manner of speech. Jeez, even the way you think is starting to mock him. “Will you get rid of the cape?” 

“Will you tell me where my scepter is?” 

“Of course not.” 

“Then the cape stays.” 

“The tt appears we are at an impasse,” You say, not really knowing what it means but remembering the line from The Princess Bride. You know he knows what it means. 

“It appears we are.” 

You look away from Loki and out the window in front of you. There’s so much chaos going on around you and here you are, sitting on a couch watching it happen with the man who caused it. It’s kinda like the ending to Fight Club. Was this your Fight Club moment? Did Loki even know what Fight Club was? 

Oh, well, it’s not like it matters. If this wasn’t the most picturesque way to die, you weren’t sure what was. 

“Can I ask you a question?” You say after a while. He doesn’t respond. You don’t know if he's looking at you or out the window, you don’t bother to check. You ask anyway. “Do you think your father is proud of you?” 

“My father doesn’t know I’m alive.” 

“That wasn’t the question.” 

“My father doesn’t understand my motives. He simply doesn’t get it,” Loki tells you. He’s the God of Lies, of Mischief, but this feels true. He respects you, that you know. 

“I’m not talking about Odin,” You say. You know they’re not full brothers, or even half, you’ve remembered that from a mythology class you took your Sophomore year. As of recently, that class is becoming really useful. 

“Oh.” That’s it. 

“I’m only asking because my father isn’t proud of what I’ve done. I’m the manager of one of the most famous sports teams in the world and he’s not proud of me,” You tell him, looking away from the window and back to Loki. He’s still staring out the window. “I’ve accomplished that much and he doesn’t respect it. He doesn’t care.” 

“What are you getting at, Y/N?” Loki says, finally looking at you again. His voice is tainted with something and you’re not sure what. He’s not upset with you. He’s confused by you, and you know he thinks you’re intimidating. 

Or maybe he was just playing to your good side. 

You think about your next words very carefully. “I’m simply in baseball. My accomplishments mean nothing to Earth as whole,” You start. You have to find the right way to word this. You’re slow with the words this time, finding them along the way. “If you win this Battle, and your father isn’t proud of you, then what’s the fucking point?” 

A knife is at your throat and Loki’s face is in yours and you’ve twisted against the arm of the couch. Honestly? It’s more hot than it is threatening, but you seriously need to stop thinking like that, otherwise it’s gonna bite you in the ass later. “Never speak of my father like that, lest you want this in your throat, Y/N.” 

You can feel it against your skin. But looking Loki in his eyes, you’re in no danger. He won’t kill you. You can see it in his eyes that there is no menace, no indication of any real threat to your life. “If you wanted me dead you would’ve done it by now.” 

“Who says I’m not waiting for the right moment?” 

“You respect me too much,” You say, your hand gripping onto his arm before sending both of you over the side of the couch. Your other hand moves quickly to grab the knife that you’ve knocked loose and you throw it out the window, now pining Loki with all of your weight. It’s not much, especially when he’s a God who can heal himself at an extraordinary rate and you’re a human with chronic back pain. 

The nice part about having a fucked up throw is that no one knows where it’s going or where it’s gonna land. 

In this case? It’s Natasha’s hand. 

“Nice throw, All-Star,” She says, dropping it to the floor. “Now, let the MVP play.” 

“Gladly,” You say, quickly getting off of Loki and getting back behind the couch. You reach for the baseball bat underneath. It’s good to have a proper defense system. 

You can hear the fight behind you and you can see in the mirror behind the bar that Natasha’s struggling.

Bad. 

But, MVP Natasha Romanoff doesn’t want help. She never does. That you’ve learned from seeing her fight in the last half hour.

You gather all your strength and sneak around the corner of the couch, behind Loki. 

Then, you do it. 

You hit the back of his head so hard the bat snaps in half, and Loki’s on the ground, down for the count. 

“Did I kill him?” You ask, dropping the half of the bat still connected to your hands. Your back is sore. You’ve never hit like that before. Usually, when a bat snaps like that, you get a homer. Bases loaded. That should kill a man. 

Shit, you’ve heard stories about that killing people. 

“He’s still breathing,” Natasha tells you, standing up and looking down at the now incapacitated God. “Killer hit, though. I thought you were stats and recruitment?” 

“Stats, recruitment, and management,” You correct. “They don’t let men who weren’t born men into major league baseball.”

“Oh, right,” She says, awkwardly. “Well, keep it up.” 

“Will do, Ms. Romanov.” 

“Agent.” 

“Got it.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You decide amends should be made with Loki while he’s still on Earth.   
> You didn’t expect to fall in love with the asshole, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey! It’s the king of canon divergence here! So this takes place as a little buffer between Avengers and The Dark World, so think of it as like they’re holding Loki on Earth while they prepare to take him to Asgard? If that makes sense?

“Y/N.”

“Loki,” You greet him, sitting down in the plastic chair that sat outside of the acrylic cell. Inside the cell was a bed with a single pillow and a black blanket. There’s a bedside table, as well as a plastic chair that matches your own. Loki himself had a black hoodie and jeans on, you assume they’re S.H.I.E.L.D. regulation. “How have you been?” 

“I’ve been better,” He says coldly. “Why are you here?” 

“I felt bad for biting you over the head with enough force to kill a man,” You say. “And I gave you a concussion, and I know those aren’t fun.” 

“Do you?” 

“Yeah, when you broke my arm and threw me to the ground with that metal thing, I hit my head and blacked out.” 

For a second you think he feels bad, you can tell by the way he holds his face, but it drops. “I just needed you out of the way.” 

You nod. “And you didn’t want to kill me because I was intimidating.” 

“Yes.” 

“To a ten-foot-tall metal creature that spits fire?” 

“To me,” Loki corrects you, and you quirk your eyebrow and chuckle. 

“Glad to know I’m intimidating to a God, but I really don’t think that’s true,” You tell him, crossing your arms. “You are the God of Lies, after all.”

“So why do you think I didn’t kill you?” Loki questions, and you think for a moment. 

“Well, you didn’t kill Thor because even though he’s your adoptive brother, you still love him,” You say. “He might piss you off to high heaven but you still love him.” An idea crosses your mind and you smirk. “Maybe you have a crush on me.” 

Loki chuckles and shakes his head, sitting down in the chair, across from you. “Hardly.” You notice how he also crossed his arms, but he leans back, his ankle coming up to rest on his knee. “I don’t believe you only came to tell me that you’re sorry.”

“Who said I was sorry?” You say, that smile still on your face. It was hard to drop that smile around Loki. It just felt natural. “I said I felt bad. Doesn’t have to mean that I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” Loki says. “So why did S.H.I.E.L.D. decide you could visit me?” 

You shrug. “I was persistent.” You don’t tell him about the extensive searches. The pat-downs just to get denied because of arbitrary shit. “I also figured you were lonely.”

“I occupy myself.”

“Just because you know how to occupy yourself doesn’t mean you’re not lonely,” You tell him, the words leaving your lips before you can stop them. You know how he feels about not having his father be proud of him. You understand that feeling very well. That feeling can turn into loneliness fast. You stand up, going to turn around. “But, if you’d like, I can leave. I don’t have to stay.” 

“Now who said I wanted that?” Loki asks. You turn back to him and his arms aren’t crossed anymore and both feet are planted on the floor. He’s sitting up, his hands intertwined in his lap. “Of all of the Midgardians I have met, you happen to be the most tolerable.”

You smile at that. It’s little, but for some reason it strikes you as him actually caring about you staying. You sit back down. “So, what's it like, being an all-powerful God locked up in a five by nine fish tank?”

Loki chuckles for a second at your joke and your heart sores. He kinda laughed at one of your jokes. “Not bad, I must say, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a fish tank.”

“Right, because those actually get visitors,” You say, and he just grins at you. 

“I get to see your lovely face, so that’s a visitor, isn’t it?” 

~

You decide to make it a weekly thing. Every Wednesday, you visit. You decide on Wednesdays because if you did Thursdays it would be a bit too ironic. 

This time, you managed to convince the guards to let you bring a book. You had to let them inspect it so they could be sure you weren’t giving Loki anything he could use to escape. 

“Y/N, dearest, you’re late,” Loki says as you enter the room, and you smile at the ‘dearest’ part. It’s how he’s greeted you these last couple Wednesdays. You’re happier that he recognized that you were late than anything else. “Was the traffic bad up from Boston?”

“Are you really that upset?”

“If you’re late because of that little book in your hand, I might be.”

“I bought this because I thought you would like it,” You say, lifting up the book. “I can’t give it to you, but I can read it to you,” You continue, walking to your chair, across from where Loki is patiently waiting. “With the way you speak and all, I figured you wouldn’t mind some poetry.”

“The way I speak,” Loki repeats. “What do you mean by that?” 

You half-shrug. “The way you put sentences together. It’s very poetic, and I can’t talk like that, probably because I’m American, but I figured hearing someone speak like that would be a bit comforting.”

“You may perhaps be right,” Loki says, his eyes shifting from your face to the book in your hands. “What have you selected?”

“Rolf Jacobsen,” You tell him, holding it up before flipping it open. “One day I might learn Norwegian and read it to you properly.”

“I think I’d like that,” Loki says, and you smile as he gives a motion of his hand for you to start reading.    
“All the people are children when they sleep, there’s no war in them then. They open their hands and breathe in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.”

You can feel Loki’s eyes on you. You try to ignore them. “They pucker their lips like small children and open their hands halfway, soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters. The stars stand guard and a haze veils the sky, a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.” 

You swallow, glancing up for a moment. He’s staring at you, but not intensely. Softly. His hand is rest on his face as his arm rests on the arm of the chair. You keep going. “If only we could speak to one another then when our hearts are half-open flowers. Words like golden bees would drift in -- God, teach me the language of sleep.”

“You read beautifully,” Loki tells you. “Not many Americans can read Jacobsen like that.” 

So he knew what the poem was. “Thank you,” You say, “I’m sure its much more beautiful in its written language. English is very clunky and put together weirdly.” You see his lips part and he closes them again, and you wonder what he wants to say. You don’t pry him on it, though. “If you know another, which one would you like me to read?”

“Cobalt,” He tells you, and there’s a gentle look in his eyes, like he wasn’t a war criminal. And you allow yourself to forget that fact. Just for a few minutes. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

You flip to the page. “Colors are words’ little sisters. They can’t become soldiers. I’ve loved them secretly a long time.”

One thing about this Jacobsen, he did have very pretty words. “They have to stay home and hang up the sheer curtains in our ordinary bedroom, kitchen and alcove.” 

They remind you of Loki. “I’m very close to young Crimson, and brown Sienna, but even closer to thoughtful Cobalt with her distant eyes and untrampled spirit. She walk in dew. The night sky and the southern oceans are her possessions and a tear-shaped pendant on her forehead: the pearls of Cassiopeia.” 

You can’t remember who that is. You know it’s not too important. “We walk in dew on late nights. But the others. Meet them on a June morning at four o’clock when they come rushing toward you, on your way to a morning swim in the green cove’s spray.”

“When you can sunbathe with them on the rocks,” Loki finishes, looking up as you do. “Which one will you make yours?”

You smile at him, he smiles back, softly. It’s not that smile that he gave to any of the Avengers. He has never given you that look. It’s like he’s unable to. You don’t know if he’s trying to gain your trust or if he knows that he already has it. “I think you know these poems better than you’re letting on.”

“I’ve just haven’t heard someone read them in a long time,” He tells you. “Well, long by your standards.”

You laugh a bit. “Yeah, time works very differently,” You say. “But, then again, time doesn’t really matter. We made it up to make shit make sense and then we built arbitrary laws around it,” You say, looking up. “But what the hell do I know, I just do baseball statistics.”

“Don’t say that,” Loki tells you, and you look back to him. His eyes never left you. “You’re far more intelligent than you think, Y/N. More complex, at the very least.”

“The last word I’d use to describe myself is ‘complex’,” You say, but the smile on your face stays where it is. “ _ Vi er hvem vi er _ .”

“I thought you said you didn’t know Norwegian,” Loki says, and you shrug. 

“I don’t,” You tell him. “That’s the extent of my knowledge.”

“And you say you’re not complex.”

“Because I’m not!” You say, the smile growing on your face because of how relaxed you’re letting yourself get. Loki has a new look on his face. “What?”

“You’re adorable, I can’t believe I get you all to myself,” He tells you, and you laugh. You honest to God laugh. “What?”

“No one’s called me adorable before, that’s all,” You admit. “Didn’t expect the first time to be from you.” 

~

“You know, when I coached Little League during the Off Season, none of the kids believed that I had met your brother,” You say the next Wednesday. 

“I don’t know anything about your human sport,” Loki tells you. “I find them too confusing, too fast and hard to follow.” 

“I know, I like knowing more about something than you. It’s funny,” You laugh. “If you’d like, I can teach you how baseball works. It’s the easiest sport to understand.” 

He nods. You know he doesn’t get to do much in his cell other than pace and wait for your weekly visit. 

“So, there’s nine players on the field during a baseball game,” You start. “That’s not how many are on the team, we switch them out depending on their strengths and weaknesses and who we’re playing with.” 

“Okay.” He seems like he gets it more than Thor. 

“And these players switch between offense and defense the entire game.” 

“How long does a game last?” 

“Nine innings,” You say, and you remember that he doesn’t know how long an inning is. “It’s roughly three hours. An inning is a round, and it’s broken in half, top to bottom.” 

“Why not left to right?” 

“Because it sounds better.” 

“That’s debatable.” 

You chuckle. “Top of the fifth. Left of the fifth.” The words feel weird in your mouth. 

“I don’t see a difference,” He tells you. 

“I do!” 

“That’s because you’ve been playing the sport since you were young,” Loki says, and you shake your head. He’s confused. “You’ve never played?” 

“They wouldn’t let me,” You explain. “I’ve always hocked it up to childhood injury, but really my high school wouldn’t let me on the team, my college didn’t let me try out and tried to put me in softball, and I said fuck it, just let me do the mechanics behind it.” 

“Oh,” Loki says. “I see.” 

You shrug. “It’s better than most guys like me get.” 

“It’s still not fair,” He tells you, and you shrug again. Is this...actually upsetting him? You really can’t tell if he’s genuinely calling out the fairness of your sport or if he’s trying to play a sympathy card of some sort. 

“Yeah, I guess, but now I’m the boss. If a player says some fucked up shit to me I can trade him and have him gone within two days.” 

“How does that work?” Loki asks you. “Trading players.” 

“Uh, let’s see. Say my pitcher hasn’t been pitching the way he used to for a while now. He’s been pretty okay, but the last couple games I’ve had to switch him out for a new guy at the top of the fifth,” You explain, and you can tell Loki is trying to not look lost. “Pitchers are supposed to last until the top of the seventh.” 

He nods. “I see.” 

“I would call another team who has a really good pitcher who doesn’t know that my pitcher has been doing shitty. I ask if we can trade pitchers, say a dollar amount, and boom, new pitcher.” 

“So it's about money,”Loki says with a smile. “What in America isn't?”

You nod. “At my level, yeah. But, if that pitcher keeps messing up and accidentally lets the other team win because he can’t pitch right, then my team loses. The more games we lose, the lower in the division we fall, and fans lose faith in us and we lose money, and because I didn’t trade out that pitcher, I get fired.” You hope he gets all of that. “That’s how it works for every team, all across the world.”

“The world?”

“Baseball got really popular in Japan.”

Loki nods. “One day I’ll understand it better.”

“You will,” You say. “I wish I could take you to a game and explain it there.”

“I’m afraid I’d get lost.”

“But you know some of the basics,” You tell him. “Once you know the basics, then you can learn the more complicated stuff. It’s like learning a language, or science, or math. Shit, all I do is math. Math and risk taking.”

“Is that why you were in the tower?” Loki asks you, and you don’t know how to answer. He’s never asked you why you were there. And to be honest, you don’t really know. You are part of the reason he got taken down and why he’s in this cell. 

“I guess,” You reply. “I...fuck. Okay, so, one of your Leviathans plowed through Yankee Stadium, and it reminded me of the metal thing, and I just ran. And when I say I ran, and I mean I ran from the Bronx to Midtown Manhattan. I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. Everything was messed up, cars were mangled and builds had started to crumble, and I stopped by a car and I saw your brother.” You sigh, remembering all of the story. That was the scariest part of your life. “And we just, Thor saw me, and we came up with a plan. You knew I wasn’t going to be there and you hadn’t killed me before, so why the fuck would you want to kill me then?”

You don’t look at him through any of this. Somehow it felt like you were betraying his trust, even though this had happened months ago. You knew that he knew that you were the reason he was in this cell. 

“I took a risk, and you didn’t kill me,” You say, finally looking back at him. He’s expressionless. “I did it because it’s what I had to do, and now I’m here because I can’t find the strength to not hate you for almost killing me twice.”

“You don’t hate me?” Loki asks, and you can see in his eyes that he’s hurting. Bad. 

You shake your head. “I can’t find it in my heart to hate you. If I hated you, I wouldn’t be coming back every week and smiling at you and laughing with you and reading to you and explaining how a fucking game works,” you say, and as the words leave your lips you realize you really couldn’t find it in your heart to hate him. It simply wasn’t possible. You found yourself falling for the God and that wasn’t good at all. 

The buzzer rings, signalling that your time is up and you sigh. 

“Thank you,” He tells you, and you can see something that you’ve never seen before. Remorse. Not that fake remorse that he’s shown Thor or his father, but painful, agonizing remorse. 

“Don’t thank me for being a decent human being, Loki,” You say with a smile, and you leave, wondering just how damaged this God actually was. 

~

“Why do you find the way I speak interesting?” Loki asks another day, and you flip through your stat sheet. You had it so you could work at the same time as talking to Loki, since he could understand your sport and you could get a little help with tough calls on players. 

“Because you’re the only person I’ve met who speaks like that,”You tell him, flipping your paper to look at your pitchers. “I mean, yeah, Thor does, but it’s not as...sincere.” You’re not exactly sure if it’s the right word, but it fits. “Thor’s tone is very serious, but yours is more sarcastic. You have fun with the way you arrange your sentences. It’s quite admirable, actually. I really like the way you speak.”

“They´ ve finally figured out my arrangements in Asgard,” Loki tells you, and you can feel the happy sphere you’ve been carrying in your chest every time you speak to Loki drop into a deep dark pit in your stomach, instantly filling you with dread. 

“Oh,” You say, trying not to feel the crack forming in your heart. To be honest, you’ve never been so completely open with a person, and while you haven’t told him your darkest secrets or deepest desires, it feels like you could’ve. For some reason, your trust has fallen in line with that of an international war criminal. “So what does that mean?” 

“I’m going to Asgard for trial, where I will ultimately be found guilty and serve a sentence for quite some time,”Loki explains. You can bring yourself to look at him. You don’t want to. You can’t. 

“So I’m guessing Thor is coming to pick you up?” You ask, and you can see Loki nod out of the corner of your eye. “That’ll be a great catch-up. Haven’t spoken to him in a while.” 

“You haven’t?” 

“I tend to get updates from Jane. He’s taken up a lot of her time. I think they’re together, but I don’t know if they’ve put a label on it.”

“You humans are always very weird with labels.”

“I guess we are, huh?” You half-laugh, looking back up to him. “I mean, we’re not a great example of labels either, y’know?”

“I suppose not,” Loki says, crossing his arms in the exact same way you’ve crossed yours. “We’re...well, what are we?”

You really didn’t you were gonna be having this conversation today. “Friends,” You say, and the word tastes bitter on your tongue. “I mean, this is what friends do. They meet up, talking to each other for about an hour, and then they leave.”

“Well, friends don’t usually start out by each party giving the other concussions. Well, unless you’re Thor.”

You chuckle. “Maybe you’re more like your brother than you realize,” You say, and you sigh. Thor’s gonna come and take Loki back to Asgard. 

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“You give your friends concussions, you are very eloquently spoken, you...have passions for the arts, be it different arts, you don’t quite understand Earth sports, but you make an effort,” You list off, and a smile forms on your face from a place you didn’t know existed. A place that’s telling you that everything’s going to be okay. “I think those are some pretty decent similarities.”

“You’re forgetting something,” Loki says, and you know that protesting isn’t going to change the fact that he knows. Shit, he has to know. “We would both do anything for the people we love.”

You pray to whoever the hell that that’s true. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask @indigosandviolets on Tumblr.


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